In Memoriam

Stein Rokkan was the first professor of sociology at the University of Bergen and a principal founder of the discipline of comparative politics. He founded the Department of Sociology at the University of Bergen, which encompassed sociology, economics and political science, and which played a key role in the postwar development of the social sciences in Norway.

Career

After gaining a degree in political philosophy from the University of Oslo in 1948, Rokkan turned to empirical research, and studied at Columbia University, the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics between 1949 and 1951.

He worked at the Norwegian Institute for Social Research from 1951 until 1957, and at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Bergen from 1958 to 1966. In 1966 he became Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bergen.

Over the years Rokkan was a visiting professor at the universities of Yale, Manchester, Stanford, Geneva, the London School of Economics, and the Instituts d'études politiques in Paris.

Rokkan co-founded the ISA’s Committee on Political Sociology (CPS) in 1960 and served as its secretary from 1960 to 1970. He was vice-president of the International Sociological Association from 1966 to 1970; president of the International Political Science Association from 1970 to 1973; and president of the International Social Science Council from 1973 to 1977.

Rokkan was co-founder of ECPR, and served as our Chair between 1970 and 1976.

Legacy and influence

Rokkan has been described as ‘one of the world's leading social scientists since World War II’, and ‘one of the great masters of comparative politics’.

Since 1981, ECPR has awarded the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research in conjunction with the ISSC and the University of Bergen.

Bergen's Department of Comparative Politics has, since 1981, arranged an annual Stein Rokkan Memorial Lecture.

Extract from an obituary by Robert Dahl and Val Lorwin in Political Studies, Winter 1980

Stein Rokkan often seemed to his friends to have read everything of significance in modern history, recent political science, and sociology. An untiring worker himself, he also stimulated and encouraged others. He carried on a huge correspondence. He was indefatigable in meetings and conferences, and in addition a superb organizer. His myriad activities and his unending generosity in helping students and fellow scholars did not prevent his own steady production of important new work...Perhaps no single scholar contributed more to the development of political science in Europe...

[Rokkan was] a man who combined great strength with great gentleness, firmness of purpose with unfailing kindness and consideration, seriousness with humour. He was as unsparing of himself as he was generous toward others.

Born in Florence, Giovanni Sartori graduated in political and social sciences at the University of Florence in 1946, where he remained in a variety of academic roles until 1976.

Sartori also taught at the European University Institute between 1974 and 1976 and then became professor of Political Science at Stanford University from 1976–1979. He served as Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University from 1979 to 1994, where he was appointed professor emeritus.

Throughout his career, he held a number of visiting professorships, including at the universities of Harvard and Yale.

An icon of modern political science

A number of Sartori’s books and articles have become part of the theoretical and conceptual basis of the field, and of social science in general.

Sartori was deeply interested in the formation, analysis, and use of political concepts. He observed that political science, for better or worse, lacked the coordination in terminology that he presumed to exist in the physical and biological sciences. He encouraged a more 'intentional' use of concepts, with the objective of furthering a shared understanding of ideas.

In 1970, he became a founder the first permanent research committee of the newly created International Political Science Association (IPSA). From 1973–1976, he served as a member of ECPR's second Executive Committee, under the Chair-ship of Stein Rokkan.

He was founder and editor of the Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica for more than thirty years, from 1971 to 2003. Following his retirement from academic life in the mid-1990s, Sartori became a public intellectual, contributing regular opinion pieces to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

Awards and honours

Giovanni Sartori was the recipient of numerous accolades during his long and illustrious career, including our own Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005, and in 2007, ECPR’s Mattei Dogan Foundation Prize.

In 2005, he was honoured with the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences, the prize jury citing his 'commitment towards the range of safeguards and freedom of an open society'.

Key texts

Sartori's Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis (1976; reissued by ECPR Press in 2005) is a classic of postwar political science, now established as the foremost work in its field. The book is widely seen as having an ‘outstanding, lasting significance’ to the study of political parties, and provides a comprehensive and authoritative approach to the classification of party systems.

ECPR Press has also published Michal Kubát and Martin Mejstřík's Giovanni Sartori: Challenging Political Science, a thorough portrait of Sartori's personality, scholarly work and public engagement, which examines how Sartori guided the discipline and shaped public political discourse during times of political upheaval. The volume is unique in covering all three aspects of Sartori's academic work: comparative politics, social science methodology and political theory.

An extraordinary life

2024 marks a full century since Giovanni Sartori’s birth. Explore the great man’s life, works and achievements at GiovanniSartori.com

Serge Hurtig was born in 1927 in Bucharest. He studied at Georgetown University in Washington, and joined Sciences Po Paris in 1948, where he graduated in 1950 and was immediately offered a position as researcher.

Fluent in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish, Serge remained at Sciences Po during his long and fruitful career, leading the institute for more than 25 years.

As Secretary-General and Scientific Director, he helped shape and adapt the institution, expanding its library, establishing research centres in economics and in history, preserving the bookstore to serve students and faculty, and creating a renowned academic press.

ECPR and AFSP

In the 1970s, along with Stein Rokkan, Jean Blondel, Norman Chester, Hans Daalder, Richard Rose, and others, Serge played a crucial role in the creation of ECPR. He was a member of our very first Executive Committee and remained a member until 1979.

For several decades, Serge also served the French Political Science Association, steadfastly supporting its flagship Revue Française de Science Politique, sitting on its Council, and representing the AFSP on IPSA's Council and Executive Committee.

Abstracts

Serge Hurtig played a major role in the development and institutionalisation of political science in France, but he also strongly believed in and defended its internationalisation.

In 1963, he was appointed editor of International Political Science Abstracts, which had been founded in 1951. The Abstracts were a formidable tool for scientific monitoring and circulation, with some 300,000 entries, reference and article summaries from more than 1,000 political science, humanities and social science journals and periodicals in languages from French, English, Spanish and Russian to Turkish and Japanese.

His editorial involvement with the Abstracts continued until the end of his life.

IPSA / AISP

Serge’s belief in the importance of international exchanges also shows in his active contribution to the International Political Science Association, of which he was secretary-general from 1960 to 1967. He also served as vice-president of IPSA’s Executive Committee from 1979 to 1985.

Indeed, his connection with IPSA dates back as far as 1952, when he attended the Hague Congress as assistant to Jean Meynaud, then Secretary General.

Serge played an instrumental role in organising four IPSA World Congresses in 1961 (Paris), 1964 (Geneva), 1967 (Brussels) and in Paris again in 1985.

On the IPSA website, Paul Godt (Sciences Po Paris) who worked with Serge for many years, remembers a

‘meticulous and inspiring professor, whose students still return for friendship and counsel. They praised his influence on the French political science community, encouraging young scholars to engage with their international colleagues, promoting a distinctive European approach to political science.’

One of the leading comparativists of his generation, Hans Daalder held a career-spanning professorship at Leiden University in the Netherlands, from 1963–1993.

In 1970, he became one of the eight founding members of ECPR, and followed our first Chair, Stein Rokkan, as ECPR Chair from 1976 to 1979. His deep connection with ECPR continued when he served as Director of ECPR from 1988–1991.

During this time, Hans also headed the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the newly established European University Institute in Florence.

When he retired following a long and illustrious career, Hans continued his scholarly involvement in Leiden’s political science community. He was also an elected member of the prestigious Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Outstanding contribution

Hans was an internationally renowned scholar and a leading political scientist. As one of the founders of Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science, he played a crucial role in the development of the discipline in the Netherlands and Europe. His research leaves an imprint on Dutch and comparative political science in general, and on the Leiden Institute in particular.

ECPR has long recognised its gratitude to Hans, and in particular his commitment to helping young scholars, most notably through the prize named after him, which was awarded biennially for the best paper presented at the ECPR Graduate Student Conference.

Hans was an inspiring teacher and mentor to numerous students from the Netherlands and around the world.

Key texts

In 2011, ECPR Press issued a collection of Hans' classic texts, with a new introduction by Peter Mair, as State Formation, Parties and Democracy: Studies in Comparative European Politics,. Hans also co-wrote the intellectual portrait of Peter Mair which appears in the ECPR Press volume of Mair’s selected works.

Hans Daalder is a contributor to the first volume of the ECPR Press Masters of Political Science series, and to the OUP Comparative Politics volume Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges by Richard Gunther, José Ramón Montero, and Juan J Linz.

Courteous and generous

Writing in the ECPR co-published journal European Political Science, former EPS Editor Luís de Sousa remembers that Hans 'was regarded by his closest colleagues and friends as a courteous and generous man, with an unmatched life experience, intellectual rigour and foresight and humbly committed to developing the next generation of scholars and supporting his peers.'

Gerhard Lehmbruch was a celebrated scholar of comparative politics and one of the attendees at the 1969 Paris meeting that led to the eventual formation of ECPR.

He obtained his doctorate and habilitation in political science from the University of Tübingen, and from 1969 until 1996 he taught at the universities of Heidelberg, Tübingen and Konstanz.

A pioneer in his field

A former protégé of Stein Rokkan, Lehmbruch was a pioneer in his field. His research addressed topics including the nature of political control systems, and the relationships between the state and interest groups. He focused on institutions, political regulation and comparative politics, including 'negotiated democracy' and structural incongruence between federal state polities and party competition, or Strukturbruchthese.

In 1976 he published his seminal work Party Competition in the Federal State, in which he explored the structural fracture thesis for the very first time. This in turn allowed for deeper analysis of party competition in the Federal Republic of Germany.

From 1991 to 1994 Lehmbruch served as chair of the then German Association for Political Science (DVPW).

A scholar and a friend

On learning of Gerhard Lehmbruch’s passing, Roland Czada of Universität Osnabrück, Lehmbruch’s former PhD student and research assistant, paid tribute to a 'great scholar' and close friend.

'Those close to Gerhard learned much about his motives and life background as a researcher on amicable political agreement and non-majoritarian politics.

'He explained his interest in social cleavages and non-majoritarian compromise from youthful experiences. He grew up as a son of a republican liberal pastor in an East Prussian region with a sizeable Polish minority in the shadow of terror, as he tells in his intellectual memoirs.

'When his father, who had to service a sprawling parish with Lutheran, Catholic and Mennonite villages, had been imprisoned by Hitler’s Gestapo, his mother told the schoolboy, there is no need not be ashamed, but he could rather be proud of him.

'So he learned early that in his own words “we were ruled by criminal terrorists”. This and the human misery he went through after the war left traumatic memories. As a refugee in the West, he experienced the salience of regional cultural and confessional cleavages, which as he mentioned has never left him since and may have led him to engage in cross-cultural comparative social science.'

A youth under the swastika

In 2021, Gerhard Lehmbruch published Memoirs of a ‘Forty-Five’: A youth under the swastika against the background of a Brandenburg-East Prussian family history. The memoir testifies to Lehmbruch’s ability to link the macro and micro based on history and social science. It also reinforces his deep, lifelong commitment to cooperation, negotiation and consensus-building.

Prestigious honours

During his lifetime Gerhard Lehmbruch won numerous awards for his love and devotion to the discipline. Honours included the 2003 Theodor Eschenburg Prize from the German Association for Political Science, and, in 2009, ECPR’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. He was also conferred with honorary memberships of the Swiss and Austrian Political Science Associations.

Jean Blondel, a hugely influential scholar and a key figure in ECPR history, passed away on Christmas Day 2022. We celebrate his remarkable contribution to the discipline

A true pioneer

Jean played a crucial role in the founding of our organisation and served as its first Executive Director.

In 1969 and 1970, together with Stein Rokkan, and working with Peter de Janosi of the Ford Foundation and other prominent European scholars, Jean shaped the concept of a ‘European Consortium for the Promotion of Political Science’.

Former ECPR Chair David Farrell paid tribute to a ‘true pioneer’ in the discipline:

Jean Blondel was a true pioneer, and political science, in Europe and beyond, is all the better thanks to him. — David Farrell, ECPR Chair

Tracing Jean's career in his recent piece for our blogsite, The Loop, Ian Budge says Jean was a ‘Napoleonic figure’ who reshaped European political science structurally and intellectually; and had a striking influence on the discipline throughout the world.

Ian describes Jean's contribution to the establishment of ECPR as his 'defining' project, and a crucial one because, at the time, links between departments and individuals across countries virtually didn't exist.

Jean Blondel's evangelism and activism attracted support for conferences, workshops, research groups, journals, and grants. — Ian Budge, Department of Government, University of Essex

A highly esteemed scholar

Back in October 2019, we were honoured to host a mini-symposium at our headquarters in Colchester, to mark Jean's 90th birthday.

Organised by Ferdinand Müller-Rommel, the symposium explored Jean's role as an institution builder and leading scholar of comparative politics. We produced a short film featuring highlights from the event.

In their touching tribute to a long-term colleague and friend, Ferdinand and Maurizio Cotta joined the political science community in mourning the loss of a 'gifted institution builder' and an 'extraordinary human being':

After Jean Blondel's passing, we remember a highly esteemed scholar, one who opened new fields of research, who promoted enduring academic institutions, who was the mentor of so many younger scholars, but first of all, a man of honesty and manifest integrity, as well as a generous friend. — Ferdinand Müller-Rommel, Leuphana University and Maurizio Cotta, University of Siena

A devoted political scientist

In recounting Jean's myriad academic tributes and accolades, Ferdinand and Maurizio also stressed his admirable lifelong dedication to the profession.

Jean Blondel was also one of the few people who could look back on 60 years of being an active professor in political science. Retirement from work was an inconceivable concept for him.

In 2022, our prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award was bestowed jointly upon Jean Blondel and Beate Kohler. During a ceremony in August, we recorded a podcast delving into Jean’s fascinating life, career and the evolution of the political science discipline through the eyes of the winner and special guests.

As an organisation that wouldn't exist without Jean's tireless efforts, we will do our utmost to continue to honour his extraordinary work and memory.

Giliberto Capano, former member of ECPR’s Publications Subcommittee, writes:

Giorgio Freddi played an essential and decisive role in creating the discipline of political science in Italy and making the University of Bologna an internationally recognised centre for empirical studies of politics, administration and public policy.

Born in 1932, Freddi graduated with honours in law in 1955 and obtained a position as assistant professor of administrative law at the University of Bologna. Freddi was awarded a Ford Foundation scholarship in 1959, which enabled him to obtain a master's and a PhD in political science at the prestigious Berkeley campus of the University of California.

This experience shaped his academic and professional life. On his return to Italy, developing empirical political research and creating institutions for this purpose became his main objective.

The centre of political science in Italy

Freddi became a full professor in Bologna in 1972. Here he was first Director of the Istituto Politico-Amministrativo and then Director of the Department of Organisation and Political System (later the Department of Political Science), which under his leadership was to become the most important centre of political science in Italy.

A tireless institutional builder, Giorgio Freddi was President of the Italian Society of Political Science, He also served for two terms as the first Italian Chair of ECPR, 1988–1994. Freddi was a founder of the Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche, and for many years a lecturer at the National School of Public Administration.

His research interests ranged from the comparison of bureaucratic systems to the study of the functioning of justice, from public administration to the study of organisations and public policy – environment, higher education, health – and resulted in the publication of over 15 volumes and some 50 papers.

Giorgio Freddi was a visiting professor at many prestigious universities, including UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, Uppsala, Oslo and Bergen.

He was equally dedicated to his students: he was not interested in their adherence to his ideas and scientific paradigms, but in their passion, intelligence and critical spirit.

A lively intellect and curious nature

Elegant, with refined tastes, a man of the world, a great conversationalist, affable, endowed with a great sense of humour and exquisite courtesy. He was ironic and self-mocking, with a lively intellect and curious nature, stimulated by an endless series of interests that went far beyond political science. Loyal, open and direct, if reserved, Giorgio Freddi was an intellectual even before he was a professor.

And he was such a brilliant professor because he was such a brilliant intellectual, able to move easily on the most diverse subjects, with ease, balance and wit, aware, as it were, of the limits of the human condition, but always animated by an unshakeable faith in reason.

Early life

Elinor Ostrom was born Elinor Awan in Los Angeles during the Great Depression, The first woman in her family to go to college, she received a BA in Political Science from UCLA, in 1954 and later was one of only four women admitted to UCLA’s graduate program in political science, where she obtained an MA in 1962 and a PhD in 1965.

In her autobiography Elinor recalls how women were not expected to aim at much more than a well-paid clerical job, remarking: ‘I learned not to take initial rejections as being permanent obstacles to moving ahead’.

Elinor studied the water industry in southern California based on theories developed by Vincent Ostrom, Charles Tiebout, and Robert Warren, and wrote her dissertation on the problems of common-pool resources.

Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop

Elinor later met and married political theorist Vincent Ostrom. At Indiana University, Bloomington, the pair established the now world-famous Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory.

Elinor conducted research on topics from urban police departments to groundwater basins, irrigation systems, pasture lands, forests, and fisheries. In her seminal book Governing the Commons and in many other publications, she showed that when natural resources are jointly used by their users, in time, rules are established for how these are to be cared for and used in a way that is both economically and ecologically sustainable.

At ECPR’s 2011 Joint Sessions in St Gallen, Elinor delivered a stimulating keynote lecture based upon her famous 2005 book Understanding Institutional Diversity. The text was subsequently published as an article in the journal European Political Science as Why do we need to protect institutional diversity?.

Prizes and legacy

In 2009, Elinor became the first woman to be awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences – the ‘Nobel Prize for Economics’.

Elinor and Vincent Ostrom received the University Medal, the highest award bestowed by Indiana University, in 2010. In April 2012, Elinor Ostrom was named in Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people.

Elinor Ostrom was known for her remarkable energy and appetite for work, her down-to-earth manner, and her strong loyalty to students and colleagues. While she received many high honours in her long and productive career, her greatest legacy will be the hundreds of students, researchers, and colleagues who learned from and were inspired by her.

Extract from Daniel Cole’s obituary in The Guardian, 13 June 2012

‘Lin was an intensely private and modest person who was taken aback and sometimes embarrassed by the attention she received towards the end of her career. To her, accolades took a back seat to the work, which was always, in her mind, a collaborative enterprise. It was not out of false modesty that she often referred to her Nobel prize as the Workshop's prize.’

Early life and career

Born in Wisconsin, and raised in Illinois, Ronald Inglehart earned his undergraduate degree at Northwestern University, and his Master’s and PhD at the University of Chicago.

In 1963—1964, he was a Fulbright Scholar at Leiden University. He taught political science from 1966 to 2021 at the University of Michigan, where he became Research Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Social Research. He also was the founding director of the Ronald F. Inglehart Laboratory for Comparative Social Research at the Higher School of Economics in St Petersburg.

Momentous achievements

One of the world’s most cited political scientists, Inglehart published over 400 peer-reviewed articles, and authored or coauthored fourteen books.

Inglehart was a co-founder of the Eurobarometer, and in 1981 he founded the World Values Survey (WVS), which brings together a global network of social scientists gathering survey data.

ECPR Executive Committee member Christian Haerpfer reflects on his enduring legacy:

'Forty years ago, Ronald Inglehart founded the World Values Survey, now the biggest survey research programme in the social and political sciences and non-commercial public opinion research in the world.

Ron created a top-level academic and research network in 120 countries. This network has published thousands of books and journal articles in many world languages.

He was one of the most-cited political scientists in the world, and created a whole 'Inglehart School' of PhD students, who became later prominent scholars in the world's top universities.

Ron also created the world's biggest non-commercial survey research infrastructure, which covers more than 90 per cent of the world population and is used by thousands of students in the political and social sciences.

He was a prolific and outstanding scholar, but also the best academic team-builder and team-leader I had ever the pleasure to meet.'

Significant body of work

Ronald Inglehart leaves behind a highly influential corpus of work, starting with his American Political Science Review paper on ‘the silent revolution’ (a book-length version followed a few years later), that set out his thesis on intergenerational value change in post-industrial societies.

Awards and legacy

A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Inglehart received honorary degrees from Uppsala University, the Free University of Brussels, and Leuphana University Lüneburg. He was co-winner of the prestigious 2011 Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science.

Ronald was a frequent collaborator with Pippa Norris (Harvard), who describes how he was ‘a pioneer in expounding bold conjectures about social change which captured the contemporary zeitgeist and then also gathering large-scale cross-national survey data monitoring attitudes, values, and behaviours, to test the comparative evidence for key claims in these social theories’.

Inglehart trained generations of scholars in comparative politics. These amazing students – former graduate and undergraduate students who lead the world over — were inspired by Inglehart’s breadth, by his warmth and generosity, by his deep commitment to teaching and mentoring, and by his passion for ideas.
— Nancy Burns, University of Michigan

Peter Mair was born in Country Sligo in the west of Ireland. He studied history and politics at UCD, graduating with a BA in 1972 and an MA in 1973.

From 1974–1976 he was assistant lecturer in politics at the National Institute for Higher Education, Limerick. While lecturing at the University of Strathclyde from 1976–1978, he began a doctorate, supervised by Hans Daalder, at the recently opened European University Institute (EUI) in Florence.

Peter was assistant and then assistant professor at EUI from 1979–1984, during which time he was active in ECPR summer schools and seminars, establishing lasting contacts with leading practitioners and early-career researchers.

After gaining his PhD from Leiden University in 1987, Peter became senior lecturer at the University of Manchester (1984–1990), and then at Leiden University (1990–1992), where he met his wife, Karin Tilmans. In 1992 Peter became professor of political science and comparative politics at Leiden University.

From 2005 Peter served as professor of comparative politics and chair of the department of political and social sciences at EUI. He was appointed dean of studies at EUI in June 2011.

Broad scope and depth

With Stefano Bartolini, Peter Mair wrote the 1990 classic Identity, Competition and Electoral Availability, historically contextualising the institutionalisation of stable European party systems from 1885 to 1985. This book, reissued by ECPR Press in 2007, garnered the prestigious Stein Rokkan Prize in Social Science Research.

Another of his key texts is Party System Change: Approaches and Interpretations (1998), which addressed the drivers of change and stability, stressing the capacity of parties to adapt. The volume includes an assessment of emergent party systems in post-communist European states.

Following Peter’s untimely death, ECPR Press published a collection of his most significant and influential work.

The selection ranges from considerations on the relevance of concept formation to the study of party systems and party organisations; and from reflections on the democratic legitimacy of the European Union to the future of party democracy.

Including frequently cited papers alongside lesser-known work, the writings attest to the broad scope and depth of Mair’s insights into comparative party politics, and the changing realities of party government. As such, they form an important and enduring contribution to the study of politics, and a fitting tribute to an inspirational and much-missed figure in the global political science community.

Finest of his generation

Widely regarded as one of the finest political scientists of his generation, Peter was awarded numerous prestigious grants, fellowships and awards. Despite his many achievements, he remained modest and personable. In their tribute, Peter’s close friends and colleagues Alan Ware and Michael Moran remembered how

‘Peter's friendliness and conviviality is one reason he will long be remembered by his academic colleagues – both in the institutions of which he was a member and by others. Whether it was at the EUI, at ECPR conferences and workshops, or wherever, lunching or having coffee with him was always a pleasure. His conversation was interesting, amusing and stimulating but never intimidating; it always felt good to be with him. He will be greatly missed.’

Jacqui Briggs was raised in Hemsworth, West Yorkshire. Growing up in a close community affected by Thatcherism nurtured the young Jacqui’s passion for political engagement and equality.

Her undergraduate studies began in Aberdeen and, discovering a flair for politics, Jacqui transferred to Leeds University in 1985 to specialise in political studies, after which she completed her PhD at the University of York.

Jacqui was the daughter of a miner who was out for the duration of the 1984–5 British Miners’ Strike. Her 1998 monograph Strikes in Politicisation explored the Strike, not only as a politicising event, but also its effects on women.

University of Lincoln

Jacqui worked at the University of Lincoln for over 20 years, from 2012 as Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences. In 2017, she became Professor of Politics and the University’s first Chair in Teaching and Learning.

Jacqui’s dedication to social justice was evident in her research on the ways female MPs navigate political territory. She was also passionate about engaging young people in politics, which led to her 2017 monograph Young People and Participation: Teen Players. This commitment also informed her 2014 textbook Doing Politics, and later saw Jacqui become co-convenor of the UK’s Political Studies Association’s specialist group on Young People’s Politics. Jacqui was elected to the board of the UK PSA in 2005, and In 2011 took on the role of Vice Chair.

Jacqui was co-editor of European Political Science 2009–2015, where she helped establish the Teaching and Training section as a strong, independent element of the journal.

Senior Editor of EPS during her tenure, then-ECPR Director Martin Bull, remembers Jacqui as someone:

‘with complete dedication to her work, innovatory in what she achieved and engaging in the way she did it. She was a wonderful person to work with and all of the team learnt from her insights over those six years.’

 

Real-world influence

Jacqui sat on the board for the national Campaign for Social Sciences, and strove to build links between academia and the wider community. She also made numerous TV and radio appearances as a political pundit.

During her time on the British government’s Education and Skills committee, Jacqui developed initiatives around quantitative methods, and created an alumni network with links to professional bodies. She helped establish workshops for teenagers considering studying politics at university, and supported teachers through a new PSA Teachers’ Network.

In recognition of her significant contributions, in 2012 Jacqui received the prestigious Award of Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences.

People above processes

Jacqui saw politics as about people above processes. This principle guided her academic writing and engagement with her students. She regularly promoted community events to encourage political activism; while on holiday in New York in 2017 she broke with her itinerary to join a band of feminists on an anti-Trump demonstration.

She showed working class students it was possible to study, young people it was important and exciting to engage in politics. And she showed female researchers it was possible to be yourself, have a sense of humour, and be an impressive academic. Jacqui’s personality and generosity touched everyone who met her.

This is an edited version of an obituary which first appeared in APSA’s PS newsletter, reproduced here with kind permission

Kris Deschouwer, ECPR Chair 2018–2021, writes:

The passing away of Rudy Andeweg in June 2024 at the age of 72 came far too early. Although he had formally retired in 2018 – on which occasion he received a royal distinction – Rudy was still an active scholar and kept adding pieces to the impressive scientific oeuvre that he had already built. His membership since 2006 of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences is only one of the proofs of his prominence.

Leiden native

A Leiden native, Rudy earned a degree in political science from Leiden University in 1975 and an MA in political science from Ann Abor in Michigan, in 1976. He defended his PhD in Leiden in 1982 with a thesis entitled Dutch Voters Adrift; on explanations of electoral change (1963–1977). Rudy obtained a scholarship for Nuffield College in Oxford in 1984, and became full professor of political science in Leiden in 1988.

Rudy’s research originally focused on electoral behaviour, and later increasingly on political institutions, political elites and political representation. His book with Galen A. Irwin, Governance and Politics of the Netherlands, currently in its fourth edition, is considered an indispensable textbook on Dutch politics.

Rudy was one of the most prominent voices in political science in the Netherlands and in Europe, a prolific researcher and an excellent and much-apprecised teacher.

Leading by example

Rudy expected a lot from his students and colleagues and was able to do so because he was also very demanding for himself, always leading by example. His commitment and professionalism in everything that he undertook was legendary.

When people display this combination of qualities, they are always asked to take up positions of responsibility. Rudy Andeweg became chair of his department, dean of his faculty, chair of the Dutch Political Science Association (NKWP), member and vice-chair of the Dutch Electoral Council (Kiesraad).

Navigating choppy waters

In 2012, Rudy was elected to ECPR’s Executive Committee, and he served as ECPR Chair from 2015 to 2018. He boarded the ship during stormy weather but managed to sail it safely into calmer waters.

If ECPR has today the means, the legal tools and the infrastructure needed for an ever-growing and ever more complex organisation, that is to an important extent the legacy of Rudy Andeweg.

A ‘true anglophile’

Rudy was also a true anglophile. Unlike some colleagues in ECPR’s Executive Committee who were reluctant to travel to Colchester for meetings, Rudy truly enjoyed crossing the Channel, and seized every opportunity to add some pleasant time in the countryside, often accompanied by his wife Mieneke who shared his love for all things English.

It had occurred to me that Rudy always wore the same tie, and when he reached the end of his term as chair of the ECPR I considered buying him a new one, until I discovered – before making a painful mistake – that he was always proudly wearing his Nuffield College striped tie.

Rudy Andeweg was a great scholar, a wise, calm and committed chair of the ECPR, and every inch a gentleman.

Oddbjørn was born in Norway’s far north, not far from the birthplace of Stein Rokkan.

He graduated from the University of Oslo in 1979 and worked first with various projects under the Norwegian Research Council and the Department of Political Science (1980–86) before becoming a researcher and research director at the Institute for Applied Social Research (INAS) in Oslo.

Here, Oddbjørn developed a lasting interest in the Nordic welfare model. He returned to the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo in 1992 and became a full professor in 1993.

He was a driving force behind the Oslo Summer School in Comparative Social Science from 1995 to 2018. Here he recruited internationally merited political scientists to teach doctoral students from all over Europe.

Research focus

Oddbjørn was a prolific researcher with research interests and publications in the tradition of Stein Rokkan: comparative politics with a special focus on Western Europe, political sociology and electoral behaviour, value orientations and ideology, and methodology and statistics.

His best-known books are Class Voting in Western Europe: A Comparative Longitudinal Study (Lexington, 2006), and Social Structure, Value Orientation and Party Choice in Western Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

Team player

He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. He chaired the Norwegian Political Science Association from 2010 to 2017 and the Nordic Political Science Association (NoPSA) from 2011 to 2014.

Oddbjørn was elected to ECPR’s Executive Committee in May 2018, having served as head of the local organising team for the ECPR’s highly successful General Conference in Oslo in 2017.

He had a longstanding connection with ECPR, and from 2008–2015 served on the Steering Committee of our Standing Group on Public Opinion and Voting Behaviour in a Comparative Perspective.

Big impact

Oddbjørn was elected to the ECPR’s Executive Committee on a six-year term of office, of which he served only 15 months until his unexpected death. However, in that short time made a big impact both on the ECPR’s events and the deliberations of the Executive Committee.

Then-Chair of ECPR, Kris Deschouwer, remarked

Oddbjørn was a pleasure to work with and brought an innovative and hard-working attitude to the Executive Committee, where his professional and collegial attitude will be sorely missed.

Maurizio Ferrera and Ursula Hoffmann-Lange write:

Hanne Marthe was born in Furnes, Norway. In 1996, she received her PhD in political science from the University of Oslo, where she had already started working as research assistant at the Institute for Social Research.

Her research focus was elections and electoral behaviour, but she also worked on political parties, coalitions, political representation and parliamentary recruitment in Norway and other Scandinavian countries.

Internationally renowned

Hanne Marthe was widely published and internationally known specialist in these fields. Her last article on political representation in Norway was co-authored with the late Henry Valen, with whom she had collaborated closely for many years.

An article on the recruitment of the Norwegian parliamentary elite, Ascent of the Young, the Smart and the Professional: Norway's Parliamentary Elite in Comparative Perspective, was published in the December 2011 issue of Comparative Sociology when she was already seriously ill.

ECPR associations

Hanne Marthe served on the ECPR Executive Committee, 2003–2009, elected in on the highest number of votes. During her first three years, she held the portfolio for ECPR’s Standing Groups and served as a Stein Rokkan Prize juror.

She also helped promote the recruitment of Associate Members from outside Europe, and from 2006 to 2009 headed the portfolio for the Joint Sessions of Workshops. In this capacity, Hanne Marthe designed a new system for Workshop selection which greatly improved the efficiency and effectiveness of the procedure.

Hanne Marthe's ability to communicate with people was remarkable. She had a clear vision for ECPR’s mission and during her time on the EC, had to confront a number of delicate issues regarding the Consortium’s governance, the launch of new initiatives and the reorganisation of ECPR Press.

Hanne Marthe always made valuable contributions to identifying and balancing options and for reaching consensus within the EC and among the wider Consortium. She had a strong scientific interest in politics, but also a personal passion for the challenges of dealing with collective problems and reconciling different views about them.

A remarkable communicator

Hanne Marthe was adept at communicating her research results not only to her colleagues and students, but also to a non-academic audience. She thus became a prominent political commentator on Norwegian parties and elections.

Fond memories

She was a strong and open-minded personality who was always cheerful. She loved her work as much as sitting together with a glass of beer and just talking.

During the 2006 Joint Sessions in Nicosia, we visited the beautiful Roman Villa in Paphos, where walked on the beach and had a quiet drink at a café. It was a splendid opportunity to relax and chat about work and life.

Hanne Marthe died aged 54, after a long battle with cancer, on 20 July 2012. We deeply regret that she is no longer with us and will always remember her as an outstanding colleague and a good friend.

On 17 June 2025, the political science community lost Leonardo Morlino, a leading comparativist in the Italian and European political science communities. Leonardo served as President of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) from 2006−2009.

A remarkable career

Born on 28 June 1947, Leonardo earned his PhD in political science from the University of Naples in 1970 and went on to study at Yale University, the Cini Foundation in Venice, and the Centro di Studi Economico e Sociali in Milan.

He held faculty positions at the University of Florence and LUISS Guido Carli University, and visiting posts at Stanford, Oxford, the Juan March Institute in Madrid and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris.

At the time of his death he was Emeritus Professor of Political Science and Director of the Research Center on Democracies and Democratizations at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome.

Leonardo is the author of over 45 books, including Political Science: A Global Perspective; Comparison: A Methodological Introduction for the Social Sciences and Equality, Freedom, and Democracy: Europe after the Great Recession.

A pioneer in the field

Leonardo’s research spanned Southern and Eastern Europe, with a focus on democratisation, the quality of democracy, and the role of international actors in democratic transitions. In 1992 − a time at which perspectives from Northern and Western Europe dominated ECPR scholarship − he founded one of our first Standing Groups, in Southern European Politics. More than three decades on, this thriving Group has built a network of more than 350 members.

Former Standing Group Convenor Susannah Verney considers his impact on Southern European scholarship:

In an Association largely dominated by institutions and perspectives from Northern and Western Europe, the Standing Group on Southern European politics established a dedicated space for the study of Southern Europe. It provided a forum for the presentation of new research on the region and built a durable network of scholars working in the field.

By the time Leonardo Morlino stepped down as the Standing Group’s Convenor in 2007, South European studies and their presence within ECPR were already well consolidated. Characteristically, the last ECPR General Conference Section which Leonardo Morlino convened on behalf of the Group, on Europeanisation, demonstrated the thematic diversification of South European studies beyond their origins in transitology.

Leonardo Morlino leaves an impressive and multi-dimensional academic legacy, of which the ECPR Standing Group in Southern European Politics is proud to be part. Our Group will continue the work of our founder by supporting the further development of South European studies.